Oppression Of Women In Chopin's The Awakening

Women dealt through an interminable amount of oppressions in order to define and reflect social norms to guarantee their acceptance within society. As a result of the gender roles, women were coerced to be caring mothers, delicate women, and attentive housewives. Thus, commanding women to be nothing more than a stereotype. In The Awakening, Chopin compares and contrasts two women who are noticeably opposites, “one of them was the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm” (Chopin 9). Edna Pontellier’s foil, Adèle Ratignolle was the perfect society woman. In order to demonstrate how both women, having different attitudes concerning life, react to the same oppressions, the author incessantly displayed these two characters with distinct personalities. Through the eyes of Edna Pontellier, the reader can visualize the challenges that a woman had to suffer in order to be herself. Adèle, on the other hand, teaches the audience how reflecting social …show more content…
This was a result of some women acknowledging the fact that a man was not their superior, “your opinion is not my reality” (Maraboli). By having this mindset, women demonstrated their defiance towards society. Challenging society, however, was excruciatingly difficult. Thus, forcing women to be grateful for every amount of power that they could obtain from their, “domesticity and ancillary roles” in order to exercise as much power as they possible could “in ways that challenge certain norms” (Hall 203). With the constant feeling of depression and inadequacy, some women decided to obviate society’s gender roles entirely from their lives, “every step which she took toward reliving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual” (Chopin 103). Throughout the Awakening, Edna is reborn; she learns to reject many of the standards that are inflicted by society in order to satisfy her feelings of incompetence. As a result, the reader